The sun is an active star, one that teems with flares and solar eruptions on an 11-year solar weather cycle. See how solar flares, sun storms and huge eruptions from the sun work in this SPACE.com infographic.
Last week, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite captured this stunning video of magnetically captured plasma moving like a tornado across the sun's surface.
The sun tornado video shows swirling fountains of plasma creeping across the surface of the sun during a 30-hour period between Feb. 7 and 8. But unlike tornadoes on Earth, which are wind-driven phenomena, the sun's plasma tornadoes are shaped by the powerful magnetic field of our star. A solar physicist at NASA said the tornado might be as large as the Earth itself and have gusts up to 300,000 miles per hour.
